Stepdork
A. E. Murphy
Copyright © 2019 by A. E. Murphy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By The Author
Addi Whillock and Nadine Walkinshaw, the friends who never quit on me.
I place the last box in my new room. I’ve been here a few times over the past couple of months as is expected when your dad is getting serious with a new lady. It was a guest room before but Shonda had it cleared for my stuff. Nice of her.
I’m not exactly bitter about it.
There are a lot of pros to this move:
This house is bigger than my last one.
It has a pool.
It’s closer to the beach.
There’s a pool.
It’s further from the school so I have an excuse to be later home. Though not if they make me carpool with my hermit stepbrother. Dad won’t let me have another car after I got high and crashed my last one into Mr. Brunswick’s prized giraffe-shaped hedge.
My room is bigger than my last and has a roof below the side window. One I might be able to utilize in future.
It smells like lavender furniture polish.
I have a stepmother who actually likes me and makes the effort to talk to me. She’s nice and she smells like lavender furniture polish too. She’s also a badass accountant at some stuffy rich-man’s building in LA, so she has money. But then again, so does my dad and he never let me spend any. Well, not beyond my allowance anyway.
There’s a pool!
The cons are simple:
My new stepbrother has hated me since forever. Though this isn’t really a con because he mostly ignores me and leaves me alone.
My dad has less time for me now that he’s all loved up. It’s nice but it’s also sad. I’ve been his world for as long as I can remember.
There are more people around which means I’ll have to sneak out to get high before bed. Nothing major. I’m not into the heavy shit, not for the most part. But my body does require a certain amount of green in its system to sleep. To shut off the brain noise that I can never escape.
There’s a knock at my door but I know who it is. Dad’s knocks don’t sound like that.
“Come in,” I call as I pull the brown tape from the brown box and tip the contents onto my bed. Dad built it yesterday. It’s new. My old one squeaked too much so I now have a solid frame double bed with a drawer underneath. I’m wondering if I can hide people in there. It looks big enough.
Shonda steps one foot over the threshold but keeps the rest of her body out. That’s something else I really like about her, she doesn’t impose or force her way into my life.
When she looks at me I can tell she cares.
“I’m going to make sandwiches, are you hungry?” Shonda is a really beautiful woman with light brown hair to her shoulders and warm, yet sharp, hazel eyes. She has this way about her that commands respect yet oozes acceptance at the same time. There’s nothing cold about her at all.
“I’m starving.” I look at the mess on my bed. At this point I’ll do anything else but this. “Do you need help?”
Her smile brightens. “Not at all. You’ve got enough to do. I’ll help you when I’m done if you like?”
“I’ll be fine.” Really, I just don’t want anybody poking through my stuff. “I was actually going to leave most of it in boxes until I’ve painted. Can I still do that?”
“It’s your room,” she replies earnestly. “I meant that when I said it. So long as you don’t damage the walls or windows.”
“Shonda is ballin’,” I mutter, grinning at the blank canvas before me.
“I’m hoping that’s a good thing,” she replies. “Come down in ten for something to eat.”
She shuts the door behind her and leaves me to my silence.
It’s too silent.
I plug my headphones into my ears and turn the music on my phone before starting on my clothes. I have a decent enough closet. Maybe I could hide a person in there too.
I snigger at the thought and get on with my job.
I only just finished packing this shit yesterday. Packing sucks. I don’t want to pack anymore. Or unpack.
Still, I get on with it, taking care to hang up my clothes neatly. I’m not a slob, for the most part. I might forget to dump a mug in the sink, but I don’t leave my clothes everywhere.
It’s as I’m bopping to the music and sticking my favorite black skater dress onto a metal hanger that fingers tap me on the shoulder.
I startle but I don’t show it, I just yank out my headphones and let them hang around my neck.
“You shouldn’t play your music so loud,” Stepdork tells me, frowning in that way he’s always frowning. “You’ll damage your hearing.”
I blink at him and reach up to yank on the dark hair that’s tickling the edge of his long lashes, beneath large rectangular glasses. “You should get a haircut.”
He steps back, glaring at me with narrowed, intense hazel eyes that are so much like his mother’s but a lot colder. “Lunch is ready.”
“Four-one-one.” I yank on his hair again and he slaps my hand away and holds my wrist between us until I tug it free. “Don’t ever walk into my room again without knocking first or I’ll come into your room while you sleep, cut off this mop, and stick it to your face with superglue.”
Rolling his eyes, something he often does around me, he snaps, “I did knock. You didn’t answer.”
“Then text me! You know I’m always listening to music.”
“Text you how? What makes you think I’d have your number?”
I nod at that, smiling at the humor of it. “Good point. Different social circles and all.” I hold out my phone. “Input your number, Stepdork. Let this be a lesson to us both.”
I watch as he types it in and take it back the second he finishes.
“If you and your stoner buddies start pranking me I will make your life here absolute hell on earth.”
At that I laugh loudly and step even closer to him. He smells of fresh linen but little else. Not that I’m sniffing him or anything.
“You could try, but where you excel in smarts, you lack in moxie and we both know it. Good luck with making anybody’s life hell. Pussy.”
His lips pinch together and a muscle ticks in his jaw. I see a slight growth of stubble there and a red mark from a healing cut. There goes my theory that he hasn’t hit puberty yet and that’s why he’s so fucking lame.
All he does is stay in his room, read books bigger than my dad’s car, and play weird board games with his friends. Though I’ve never seen him play the board games, the last time
I visited, and Shonda was showing me my room layout, I heard one of his friends in his bedroom yell, “Alas, yee goblin. Feel my blade and melt.”
Then came the cheering of the rest of them.
They’re the official Dork-Squad of Katherine-Lee High School. The place in which we both frequent but rarely see each other.
“I can’t stand you,” he says simply, turns, and leaves.
“Adi-fucking-os, dorkshit,” I snap back and race past him, hitting his arm with my shoulder because he’s got half a foot of height on me.
He would probably be quite handsome if he removed that stick from up his ass. I’ve known him for years and he’s always been like this. Broody, moody, and so unapproachable. Hair in his eyes, glasses so large they cover the rest of his face.
And ever since a little occurrence in fourth grade, he has hated my guts. The guy can hold a grudge.
When I enter the kitchen, my dad has Shonda pressed up against the fridge and is literally eating her face.
“Children are present, parentals,” I announce, heading straight for the food on the sparkly white counter. There are two plates with sandwiches and a massive bowl full of chips. I nab one and crunch it as my eyes explore the sandwich flavors.
Shonda and my dad part, she looks ashamed, he’s just looking at her.
It’s so gross.
“I’m never falling in love if I make faces like that,” I state, pointing at my dad and Shonda blushes. Then I add, “And I hope you washed your hands before making this food.”
“I second that,” Travis announces as he takes a ham and cucumber sandwich from the plate.
My dad grabs me and yanks me into a headlock as I shriek.
“Not the hair!”
Of course, he goes for the hair. His knuckles burn into my scalp as I dig my nails into his arm in an attempt to free myself. My dad’s way too strong, I hate him for that.
When he releases me, I open my egg salad sandwich and stick it to the side of his face. Then I put the counter between us and grab another.
My dad peels it off and stuffs the majority of it into his mouth with one bite as Shonda throws a wet rag at him.
They’re used to us playfighting, we do it often. My dad should have had a boy. Though I enjoy it for the most part, just not when he ruins my hair.
“So,” my dad, aka Maxen, starts… and I just know this is going to be a talk. “Let’s lay down some ground rules.”
Yep, knew it.
“Let her settle in first,” Shonda whispers after moving to my dad’s side.
“I already know the house rules, Dad.”
“Me too,” Travis says, sounding annoyed. “I’ve got homework to finish.”
“And I’ve got hair to brush.” I point to the mess on my head.
“Okay, let me rephrase. Let’s lay down the new schedule.”
I glance at Travis who has stopped eating and looks tense. Shonda gives us both reassuring smiles.
“You’re both old enough to do your own thing, we know this, but we want to be a strong and united family unit,” my dad continues, looking proud, standing to his full height, puffing his chest out and everything as his beard-shadowed lips form words. “Fridays and Saturdays are all yours to do with as you please. But we ask that Sundays you spend here with us.”
“Barring important school events, of course,” Shonda interjects.
“What do you mean spend here with you?” I ask, frowning.
“What we mean is, we will cook a family meal together, or perhaps go out to eat, then watch a movie, or I don’t know…”
“Bond,” Shonda finishes for him and he kisses the bridge of her nose.
“Exactly.”
“Whatever,” I say and stuff another sandwich in my mouth.
They look at Stepdork who shrugs and they both take that as some kind of communication.
“Good, that’s settled then.”
I point to the hallway behind me with my thumb. “Can I go now? I’ve got shit to do.”
“Language,” Shonda corrects. Man that is going to be a fucking problem. “Please. Try to speak less like Jack Black and more like Meghan Markle, hmm?”
I give my dad a look and he just smiles that in-love smile.
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“But if I stub my toe, I’m making no promises.”
She laughs a little. “I wouldn’t expect you to under those circumstances.”
When I turn Travis has already gone and Shonda moves to deal with that as I bound up the stairs taking two at a time.
I knock on his door as I pass it just to annoy the fuck out of him and race into my room and slam the door before he even opens his.
“Real mature,” I hear him say through the wall and stifle my giggle with my fist.
Now… where can I hide my green?
My life is a good one, no, a great one. I’m not rich but I live in one of the wealthier parts of California, just south of Malibu. It’s stunning, all hills, trees, sand, mountains, and even a couple of swampy parts.
I have everything I want and need, great friends, a weed dealer, a weekly allowance, a bigger house than before, a pool, the beach is a walk away.
I know I’ve listed all of these already but I like to remind myself to be thankful of the good things when a bad thing starts trying to wiggle into my brain, to destroy my happiness. This morning is one of those mornings where my anxiety hits, as I wait on the sidewalk far from my house for my closest friends to come and get me.
Suddenly my ripped, faded-denim waist-high jeans feel like they don’t match my white long-sleeve crop top. My hair suddenly feels too messy and layered, I should have kept it all one length last cut. Therefore, I list things that get me happy an excited. Nobody has ridiculed my fashion sense before, they aren’t going to start now.
I hope.
The gunmetal Mercedes C-Class convertible pulls sharply up to the curb and I climb straight into the passenger seat. My fears vanishing when the smiling faces of my friends find me.
“My baes!” I holler at the three girls in the car.
Like a chorus they holler back, “My bae!”
We giggle like the idiots we are and Cella, the driver, sharply pulls back into the road.
This is why we all wear bandanas in the morning that Cella keeps in the glove box. So our hair stays fresh and smooth for school. We take them off as soon as we hit the parking lot.
“Dude,” Bris shouts, leaning forward as I buckle in and check my bag is zipped. “Guess who messaged me last night?”
I don’t get to reply, and she doesn’t get to finish because Cella replies on a laugh, “Who the fuck didn’t text you last night?”
“Right?” Bris grins as I twist in my seat to look at her and then at Molly who is typing on her phone in the seat behind mine, totally disinterested in the conversation.
Cella’s gold bracelets clang together on her right arm as she reaches for a packet of cigarettes that are in the console between us. She tosses them my way. “Light me up.”
I don’t smoke cigarettes beyond the small amount of tobacco that I have to put in a joint, but I don’t mind lighting them up for her.
“Who were you texting then, Bris?” I ask, handing the lit cigarette to Cella.
“Parker Nolan.”
I gag. “Oh no. That guy is so fucking cringe.”
“Right?” Cella takes a long inhale on the cigarette and blows it over her head. It makes no difference. We’ll all stink of the smoke when she’s done.
“For real, Parker Nolan?” Molly is alert now. “Dude’s a douche. Tell him to fuck off.”
“But he’s got a nine-inch dick and you know better than anyone, Cella, that he’s so good at oral.”
Cella flicks the ash out of the window. “I was fourteen, I’ve had better since.”
“I just want an orgasm while I fuck. Why is that so much to ask?”
I burst into laughter and reach into my bag for my
lipstick-shaped vibrator. “Want to borrow this?”
Cella drops her cigarette over the side of the car and snatches it from me. “Why the fuck do you have a vibrator in your bag, Raven?”
I grab it back and press the button on the bottom. It makes such a satisfying humming noise. “Never know when you need a bit of assistance during the deed.”
Molly’s jaw hits her bare knees as Cella’s laughter fills the air. “You raging slut.”
“Kidding, I’m going to Lake’s after school today.” I stuff it back into my bag and then show them the small pack of flavored condoms I purchased from my local pharmacy last week. “It’s been a while.”
“You and Lake are still boning? I thought that ended ages ago?” Molly asks and I shrug my shoulders.
“We took a break.”
“Because he didn’t want to get serious,” Cella points out.
I immediately defend us both. “Neither did I, remember? We’re leaving school in a few months. Who wants tying down when college awaits?”
“Oh man, all the hot professors,” Bris sighs wistfully and I have to admit she’s a girl after my own heart.
We fist-bump and share a smile as Cella and Molly both groan collectively. They don’t share our love for older men. It’s just a fantasy, I’m allowed that. I don’t care if that makes me fucked up.
“Speaking of major douches,” Molly says as we pull into the school lot. “What the hell is he wearing?”
We all glance over a few spaces where Stepdork stands with three guys, one of them is wearing some kind of shiny, silver-metallic-looking pants almost twice the width of his body. I hold back a laugh as Stepdork and his other two buddies grip a metal hula band that holds the pants up around the waist. Are they joining a circus?
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